They're a corporation who paid a lot of money for the rights to it, how is is different than Walmart or Netflix going after companies for using their fonts?
Judging from the examples on one of the MTA's branding pages[1], there doesn't seem to be anything particularly unique about the font they're using. They don't even mention it by name. Other sources claim the official signage is a mix of Helvetica and Akzidenz Grotesk. In any case, fontface designs are not copyrightable in the US. Fonts can be (as programs/data) but that isn't really relevant here.
[0] http://www.fordhamiplj.org/2010/01/07/mta-symbols-intellectu...
[1] http://web.mta.info/developers/resources/line_colors.htm
At least movies cost millions of dollars and presumably we as a society will get more books if authors don't also have to make french fries. What protection do fonts need?
Right under the ad was a gigantic message that said “contact-less trademark owned by and used with permission of EMVCo, LLC”
I can imagine the airline’s surprise if they have originally printed ads without this.
I've read several articles bloviating about this or that font, describing it like a wine taster would write about a wine, and would just come away rolling my eyes.
You need to draw every letter in uppercase and lowercase, and every number and symbol. You need to make sure each character is visually consistent with and works well alongside every other character.
Then you need to repeat the above for every weight your font supports. (Bold, semibold, light, heavy, etc.)
Then you need to repeat all of the above for italics.
Then you need to kern the font. This means determining how much space to leave between every possible combination of two characters in your font.
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> And people have been creating fonts for 500 years. What's the need to create more?
That's a bit like saying "People have been writing books for 500 years. What's the need to create more?"
We've only been displaying fonts on LCD screens for ~30 years, and fonts that were designed for print don't look as good on screen (and vise versa). Even fonts that were designed for low-res LCD screens often don't look as good on newer high-resolution ones.